Brazil, February 10, 2024
To the brothers of the Jesus Caritas Fraternity
Peace and good!
With the grace of God, we start the year 2024 very well.
The Pan American team met in Oaxaca from January 2 to 8. We thank our brother Father José Renteria and his community for the welcome and all the logistics created so that we could have an excellent stay and a good meeting in Oaxaca. At our meeting:
1) We follow the Fraternity methodology throughout the meeting.
2) We have reviewed the path of our fraternities throughout America, then we have sought means to strengthen the life of our fraternities and to encourage the creation of new fraternities in countries where they do not yet exist.
We propose to contact brothers from Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Cuba, who have some similarity with our spirituality or with this face of a poor and servant church, to invite them to participate with us in our fraternities.
We ask brothers who know someone to send us their contact details.
3) On January 4, Father Willians R. de Brito, from Brazil, gave an enlightenment (talk) on ” Synodality in the Church under a Latin American vision”, by videoconference.
Afterwards, we discussed these three topics:
a. What is the biggest problem of the fraternities of our continent?
b. Proposals for the future of our fraternities
c. How can we encourage our fraternity in other countries?
4) On January 7th we spent a day in the desert, on a beautiful hill in Oaxaca.
5) At this meeting we began to organize the creation of a pamphlet with the Mass in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French, and some songs from our countries, to help us in our Pan-American and international meetings and assemblies.
6) We must not forget that we had the opportunity to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and also participate in the life of the San Bartolo Coyotepec Parish. Festive Mass in honor of the Virgin Our Lady of Solitude at the foot the Cross, the festive Mass of Santos Kings, meetings with the Deaf community, and also of a marriage and baptism with them. And finally, a beautiful lunch with the community leaders of the José Renteria parish.
Brothers, following the example of Saint Charles de Foucauld, let us shout the Gospel with our lives.
A big hug,
Carlos Roberto dos Santos
Continental Responsible.
